Kukla's Korner Hockey

NEW YORK (November 23, 2012) -- The National Hockey League announced today the cancellation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through December 14. The NHL also announced the cancellation of the 2013 NHL All-Star Weekend scheduled for Jan. 26-27 in Columbus, Ohio. The cancellations are necessary due to the absence of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL Players’ Association and the NHL.

A total of 422 regular-season games – 34.3 percent of the season – were scheduled for Oct. 11 through Dec. 14.

“The reality of losing more regular-season games as well as the 2013 NHL All-Star Weekend in Columbus is extremely disappointing,” said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly. “We feel badly for NHL fans and particularly those in Columbus, and we intend to work closely with the Blue Jackets organization to return the NHL All-Star events to Columbus and their fans as quickly as possible.”

Am I the only one that HATES when the NHL makes a decision followed by phrases like “We feel so badly for the fans”? It could not be more insincere.

At this point I would rather the presser say something like “We are cancelling some more games and will eventually get around to canceling the entire season…oh and seriously, we don’t care what anybody thinks. Is there a puppy, child or senior citizen around that Gary can kick to prove this to you?”

I think to most people who haven’t followed Daly’s special brand of clueless dupe flavored liberally with purposeful lying, he comes off as a fairly sincere dude.

Also, it helps to have Bettman as the point of comparison. When the bad cop is a guy that pretty much every player and every fan holds in the utmost of contempt, being the good cop mostly just revolves around not waterboarding a reporter in public or being caught playing with a Tickle Me Elmo doll in the parking lot at Remington’s.